Telenor on Zong’s Complaint by CCP Serves Notice

CCP Serves Notice:

The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Thursday issued a show-cause notice to Telenor Pakistan for prima facie violation of Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010 for deceptive marketing practices regarding the price and geographical availability of its 4G services.

ZONG Pakistan sent a formal complaint to the CCP stating that Telenor’s 4G marketing campaign was misleading. The campaign wrongly claimed “Telenor 4G services absolutely free” and “4G services available across Pakistan”, the complainant said.

Zong said that Telenor was not only misleading consumers but also harming the business interest of its competitors.

Zong said that Telenor was not only misleading consumers but also harming the business interest of its competitors.

CCP’s enquiry found that against the claim of providing “Telenor 4G services absolutely free”, Telenor was only offering the first 100 MBs of data free of cost. Customers paid for any additional usage after that limit.

Telenor Pakistan strives to bring the benefits of internet to the people of Pakistan and to give access to quality content under our Internet For All ambition and we are fully committed towards the fulfillment of our ambition through aggressive network expansion, one of the fastest growing 4G footprint and introduction of digital products and services to cater to the needs of the masses.

As for Telenor’s claim of “Nationwide Availability/Across Pakistan,” the enquiry report said that this was giving a general impression, albeit wrongly, that 4G services were available across Pakistan. Moreover, the list of seven cities given in the disclaimer, i.e., “Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad”, where 4G services were available was also misleading as 4G service was only available at select points in these cities.